“You ain’t going to do nothing for us,” a Negro man said.
“You’re wrong, brother. If I get in office you’ll get an even shake. I promise you that. Anyone who ever knew Jim Lathrop will tell you that he takes care of his friends. We got a band tonight and we got plenty to drink. I want you folks to enjoy yourselves while you listen to what I tell you. There’s J.P. Winfield on the truck, star of the Louisiana Jubilee and the Nashville Barn Dance. He’s going to sing you some songs. There’s enough to drink for everybody, so line up at the back of the truck and we’ll get things started.”
No one moved off the sidewalk. Lathrop watched them a minute and went to the truck and took a carton of paper cups from behind the piano and pulled one from the box.
“Bring a cask over here, J.P.,” he said.
J.P. rolled a cask on its bottom to the edge of the truck bed. Lathrop turned on the wood spigot and filled the cup with wine. He drank it empty and crushed the cup in his hand and threw it on the concrete. He filled another and walked to the sidewalk with it.
“I never knew good colored folks to turn down a cup of wine,” he said. “I wouldn’t have bought all them kegs if I’d thought I was going to have to drink it by myself. What about you, brother? You drinking tonight?”
“I drinks any time, morning, noon, or night,” the Negro said.
“See what you can do with this.” Lathrop handed him the cup.
The Negro drank it off, the wine running down his chin and throat into his shirt. He wiped his mouth and laughed loudly.
“I’m one up on you,” he said.
“How’s that?”
“I never registered. I can’t vote.”
Everyone laughed.
“He’s got you there, boss,” someone said. “Ain’t none of us registered. Can’t pass the reading test.”
“Better go on the other side of town and drink your wine. I told you there ain’t no votes down here.”
They were all laughing now.
“I didn’t come down here to make you vote for me,” Lathrop said. “I just want you to listen to me for a little while. If you want to vote and you ain’t registered, by God I’ll take you down to the polls and register you myself. Now go on and line up for some wine. It don’t matter if you vote for me or not; I came here to have some drinking and some singing, and by God we’re going to have it. Sing us a song, J.P., while these people get something to drink.”
The band started playing and J.P. sang the song he had written for Lathrop’s campaign. The Negroes gathered around the back of the truck, and Lathrop left the spigot of the cask open while they passed their cups under it. The cask was soon empty and another was brought up. J.P. sang three more songs, and April and Seth sang one each. The crowd around the truck became larger. Several Negroes were dancing in the street. Their faces were shiny and purple under the neon. The air was heavy with the smell of sweat and cheap wine. The empty casks were thrown into the gutter, and small children tried to stand on their sides and roll them down the street. The people at the back of the truck began to push each other to get their cups under the spigot. Lathrop smashed in the top of the keg and set it in the street. The Negroes dipped their cups through the top into the wine. The keg was drained in a few minutes. A man tried to pick it up and drink the residue from the bottom. He lifted it with both hands and put his mouth to the rim and tilted it upward. The wine poured out over his face and clothes. He laughed and threw the empty keg into the air. It crashed and splintered apart in the middle of the street.
“Police going to be down here.”
“Hush up, woman. Police don’t bother me.”
“You’re going to spend the night in the jailhouse, nigger.”
“Hush yo’ mouth.”
“How’s everybody feeling?” Lathrop said.
“Bring out some more of them barrels.”
“Right here,” Seth said.
He put the keg on the edge of the truck and broke the spigot off with his foot. The wine ran in a stream into the street. The Negroes crowded around with their cups. The wine splashed over their clothes and bodies.
“God, what a smell,” April said. “How long do we have to stay here?”
“Till Lathrop makes his speech and gets tired of playing Abraham Lincoln,” J.P. said.
“The smell is enough to make you sick,” she said.
“Drink some wine with your brothers,” Seth said.
“You’re cute,” she said.
“April don’t like the smell. Tell them to go home and take a bath,” Seth said.
“You’re very cute tonight,” she said.
Lathrop called up to the truck from the street, where he was handing out election leaflets that instructed the reader how to use the voting machine and what lever to push for Lathrop as senator.
“Let’s have some music up there,” he said.
J.P. sang an old Jimmie Rodgers song.
Seth rolled another keg to the edge of the truck bed. Someone grabbed it by the top and pulled it over into the street. A stave broke loose and the wine poured into the gutter. A fight broke out between the man who had tipped over the cask and another man who had been waiting to fill his cup.
Lathrop got up on the truck and motioned for the band to stop playing.
“Here it comes,” April whispered. “God, I hope he makes it quick. I’m getting sick.”
“Now that I met most of you folks I’d like to tell you what I got planned when I get in office,” he began. His tan suit was spotted with wine stains. “You see that dirt road we came up on? When I’m elected we’re not going to have roads like that. No sir, we’re going to have the best streets and highways anywhere. You’re not going to have to sit on your front porch and eat all that dust everytime a car comes down your street. We’re going to get electric lights in the houses and plumbing and running water, and there’s going to be good schools you can send your children to.”
“Lawd-God,” Seth whispered.
“They ought to bring a fire hose out here and wash them down,” April said. “None of them must have bathed since the Civil War.”
“Don’t you like nigger politics?” Seth said.
“And we’re going to have unemployment insurance and social security and charity hospitals for the poor,” Lathrop said. “We’re going to run that bunch of politicians out of the capitol and put the common man back in his rightful place. We’re going to get rid of the fat boys that are draining the state dry and giving nothing to the people; we’re going to raise the wages and the living standard, and the only way to do it is to get this big city trash out of office and let a man of the people serve and represent the people.”
“This is the last time I’m going around kissing niggers for Lathrop,” April said.
“You thinking about quitting?” Seth said. “Doc Elgin ought to give you a job. They say there’s good money in pushing happy powder in the grade schools.”
April turned to him and formed two words with her lips.
“And there’s a lot more benefits coming to the state,” Lathrop said. “For years you been paying taxes to the rich, and the only thing you got for it is hard work and poverty. I’ve seen colored people working in the fields twelve hours a day and not getting enough money to buy bread and greens with; I’ve seen them sweating on highway gangs and railroad and construction jobs and getting nothing but sunstroke for their pay. Well, that’s going to change. Every man in this state is going to have an even chance, and there’s not going to be any rich men walking over the poor—”